Soon after years of suspending, couples are keen to tie the knot and the demand from customers for weddings is skyrocketing. Host Ryan Embree discusses how inns can placement on their own to capture sector share and safe bookings from the two engaged couples and wedding ceremony friends. Listen now!
Episode Transcript
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Ryan Embree:
Welcome to Suite Location exactly where hoteliers look at in and we verify out what’s trending in resort marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree.
Ryan Embree:
Hi there, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Suite Location. This is your host Ryan Embree, and we have got a excellent episode for you these days. For a issue issue that hoteliers have genuinely been missing out on the previous two years, and I’m positive visitors and vacationers have as well. And which is weddings. The pandemic of course had a large impact on team business and that incorporated weddings. We noticed a whole lot of couples postpone their weddings to afterwards in the yr or later down the line. And it’s obtaining a substantial affect on occupancy. But now as we see ourselves obtaining additional and additional by this pandemic and see that sort of light-weight at the stop of the tunnel, we see a lot more and far more people now achieving out. And those partners that postponed, they’re ready to get married and we’re viewing those visitors now feel far more and more cozy coming and remaining at our lodge.
Ryan Embree:
So that is what this episode is all about: how to attract more weddings to your resort and how to leverage your electronic marketing and executing it. So in advance of we get commenced in this episode, a pair speedy stats on what we’re observing with weddings. So this is according to the Knot, “wedding venues in close proximity to me,” lookup terms are up 200% since the thick of the pandemic and there are forecasted to be 2.6 million weddings in 2022. I am sure the hoteliers listening to this are very, extremely happy to hear that information and individuals studies. And that means a ton of occupancy opportunity. But yet again, these attendees, these brides, these grooms, when they decide to likely make a marriage block or even select your lodge as their wedding day venue, they are heading to be performing far more exploration than ever. They are gonna be doing their owing diligence, specifically when the stakes are this significant, when it’s your marriage ceremony working day, you know, you feel about it.
Ryan Embree:
So, so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna form of break this episode up into two distinctive sections. The initially would be to how to essentially use digital marketing to attract the pleased few, appropriate? The brides and grooms that are wanting to probably either all over again, pick your resort as the marriage ceremony location alone if you have site and venue place for them, or even if they are on the lookout for a marriage block, but there is also the other facet to it, of our marriage ceremony friends and what attendees that could not have traveled in excess of the earlier two a long time are gonna be hunting for in purchase to make them experience cozy. For the reason that as we’ll communicate about afterwards, if, if they do not feel cozy, there is no wedding day block discounted that’s likely to make them continue to be at your lodge vs . finding a competitor. No price cut made available there that, again, is gonna give you the higher hand.
Ryan Embree:
So we’re gonna talk about all those two techniques and we’re gonna form of crack it down into what our digital marketing expertise below at Journey Media Group is: social media, status management, and responding to evaluations. So we’ll get started with status administration when it arrives to attracting brides and grooms, and the very best way that we can do that is by term of mouth. By way of circumstance reports, recommendations from past couples that possibly have applied our hotel as a marriage ceremony venue and are pretty, very delighted with the knowledge that they gained. The a lot more modern, clearly, the much better, correct? A bride and groom that had a wedding experience in 2018 could not be applicable nowadays in 2022. So you are going to surely want to consider to decide a tale or create a tale and notify a tale which is more recent and is going to actually resonate with that bride and groom today.
Ryan Embree:
You know, you can lookup as a result of your community opinions online. Clearly, a case research or testimonial, you will need to have some type of authorization in buy to use that estimate or explain to that tale. But with general public evaluations, their expressions and opinions are by now out there publicly. So making use of your status details and on-line opinions, if you occur throughout any of people very good assessments, you can go ahead and use these. A single detail that engaged couples will search for when on the lookout for a lodge for their company to remain in is how you’re dealing with your company nowadays, ideal? Your provider says a good deal about how the content couple will be dealt with once they come on residence and how their guests are going be handled. So preserve that in head, since you are not just impacting those people specific tourists, but a huge occupancy block, like a wedding ceremony block, they’re gonna be seeking at your reviews to see, once again, how you’re managing your clients every working day to see if this is the type of company that they want when they are staying for their particular instant. Hook up them with distributors, or have a chosen list that you can provide.
Ryan Embree:
You wanna develop as much benefit for this engaged pair as probable. So if you are ready on your conclude, we know how stress filled it can be to approach a wedding ceremony and, and major occasions like this. So if you by now have a most well-liked checklist of vendors that you do the job with or you know, to make lives a small bit simpler, that’s gonna go a very long way in separating your self from the competitors, and likewise join with local enterprises and distributors that may possibly be in a position to refer you, appropriate? So you build variety of a partnership there with these suppliers, but I will set kind of a disclaimer there, don’t just set everyone on this desired checklist, in fact do your analysis, do your because of diligence and make guaranteed they are trustworthy since that track record can appear again and be linked to you. When we converse about responding to evaluations, you know, we can search by way of evaluation info and uncover some definitely awesome patterns and trends that we could use to leverage new wedding day business for our lodge.
Ryan Embree:
And what I necessarily mean by that is wanting via critique sentiment data that our evaluation response group skillfully goes in and hand tags evaluate sentiment from your on the web comments and see what data might be significant to marriage functions, these kinds of as spot, function place, parking, foodstuff and beverage, onsite facilities. If you begin to observe patterns and developments that could be important to a bridal social gathering, you can use that to leverage bookings around your competition. Or if you’re noticing some thing that appears to be like to be a detrimental pattern that could have an effect on your wedding day events that are remaining with you, make certain that these are set and resolved prior to they grow to be a larger challenge and, you know, influence the encounter and form of give a unfavorable track record snowball effect heading there. So, and then a further tip that you can do is when you are responding to reviews, if you recognize that a critique came from a wedding working experience, so regardless of whether it be the wedding day guest, whether it be the bride, the groom, the dad and mom of the delighted couple, react to them making use of key terms and conditions that, first, will assistance you with your lookup optimization for the house when it arrives to weddings, but also being able to discuss right to that wedding, that tends to make a link there.
Ryan Embree:
And when potential bride and groom or marriage planners are examining individuals assessments, you’ll observe that they really related to that party and, and really could make that all the extra exclusive when you do that. So make sure you’re responding to people evaluations when they come in and, and truly bringing up the occasion alone. So social media is enormous, we know, right? This is a massive possibility to chat to marriage ceremony planners, to communicate to future brides and grooms, engaged partners about the sort of encounter that they can anticipate when they are on residence. So all over again, social partnerships, social contests, with nearby venues and most well-liked partners, likely providing an engaged couple an option to appear out to the assets prior to the marriage ceremony. What would it experience like if you booked with us? Come encounter our good assistance so that we can give you form of a glimpse of what you can hope when you’re on home.
Ryan Embree:
If we can currently start out walking them by way of the approach of, this is what I visualize for my working day, this will actually support us set ourselves in the ideal situation to win that block and earn that reserving. Highlighting the happy couple on social media, definitely there is gonna be some permissions that are gonna want to be granted, but you assume about it. Assume of how considerably engagement, likes, and shares you’re gonna get if you share a image of the happy couple at their wedding ceremony, appropriate? Anyone that was staying on assets 100 p.c will be sure to at least like that picture and likely attain some followers from that and expand our hotel’s viewers. Hashtags are huge as effectively. So if you are gonna be highlighting the satisfied few ask if you could include their hashtag, or if they have a hashtag that they’d like to incorporate. Again, that’s just gonna even further your access, broaden your audience there.
Ryan Embree:
A further fantastic concept is to generate social posts that reply frequently asked concerns about weddings at your residence pertaining to points like probably shuttles to wedding venues close by or to the airport. So marketing and advertising the simple fact that your lodge, for weddings on site, will do welcome luggage and remedy any sort of pricing inquiries there, yet again, that could presently start off folks down the procedure and truly start placing anticipations for what that major day could necessarily mean for remaining at your house. Another area that you seriously want to investigate if you have not now is Pinterest, suitable? So bride and groom are generally wanting for inspiration for their significant day, they’re searching for artistic ideas on what they can do and how they can make it their individual. Pinterest, according to Pinterest, Pinterest, 60% of their customers are girls. So brides could be hunting for venues.
Ryan Embree:
They could be seeking for suggestions of layouts for their location and could obtain some inspiration if you are starting to add photographs of your home, rooms, features, venues, empty, and decorated activities. And then definitely we wanted to website link that suitable back again to our internet site or give them a make contact with data to likely make a highway there of link for scheduling. So, you know, yet another good plan is also to deliver checklists, proper? I mentioned this just before, we know how demanding it is to prepare an complete wedding ceremony. So why not obtain a checklist, produce a checklist branded to your hotel, you know, speaking about the measures that you have to have in buy to ebook a lodge block or what that resort practical experience checklist could appear like. These resources and insights could be massive for a bride or groom on their special working day, on the lookout to get some extra data and develop into additional successful. So downloadable branded checklists on social media, absolute fantastic strategy. We also wanna use our social media channels and platforms in various means, appropriate?
Ryan Embree:
Instagram, for instance, this is most effective, finest made use of to share high top quality pictures and films of your venue space. It is a really constructive position. So we truly wanna put our ideal foot ahead out there when it will come to the social content that we’re sharing. Twitter ought to really extra aim on individuals swift bites. And although, responses to FAQs, local tips or cancellation guidelines, you know, we know for the duration of the pandemic, how significantly that’s fluctuated points have appeared to relaxed down, but if there are any sort of community limits, Twitter is a good way to share people form of updates. Facebook, you can share photos, bulletins, updates, and even be a part of wedding themed groups and share that advice of your know-how. So individuals checklists that we were being talking about just certainly fantastic concepts for Fb. And then LinkedIn, your focus on audience shifts there, ideal? We genuinely want to be promoting our lodge on LinkedIn to wedding day planners.
Ryan Embree:
So make confident your content’s eye-catching to other professionals and offers the effect that wedding day planners want to operate with your venue. It’s simple to do. You’ve performed it prior to. And people recommendations and situation reports that we talked about at the starting of this episode, that is a great forum to place that there and then, you know, get creative with your social media. Clearly show the honeymoon suite, go reside, it’s possible speaking about when a person books a marriage at your venue, wander them by those people methods though probably demonstrating off the honeymoon suite for the pleased pair, undertaking an party on LinkedIn for exclusively for wedding ceremony planners. This could be a great chance to get a good deal of exposure extremely, pretty immediately. So get resourceful there. And then for those that, that genuinely want to commit their electronic presence to attracting weddings, build a landing web site on your web-site.
Ryan Embree:
On that landing page, make confident we’re employing the certain keywords, all over again, so you show up larger in look for outcomes when persons are accomplishing analysis. Significant high quality photos, videos of your hotel’s marriage ceremony venue, all over again, both equally empty and adorned. We do not wanna just give a person strategy of what a wedding could look like. We also wanna give the opportunity to engaged couples to envision what their specific working day would search like at your venue. So once again, the two decorated and non embellished pics of the venue, that is super, super critical to look at. And then accomplishing issues like a drone video clip, digital tours for the engaged partners to seriously get a feeling of what your venue delivers and what they can anticipate and what your company from out of town are going to hope. So talking of attendees, you know, that’s the next part that I needed to chat about on this episode, for the reason that additional individuals are now going to be willing to journey to weddings.
Ryan Embree:
Maybe a pair decades in the past, or a yr back, we obtained that wedding invite and we had to actually sit down and imagine whether we are heading to attend that or brides and grooms, when they were scheduling their weddings truly took into account how lots of individuals they were inviting. Now, some of all those fears have subsided and perhaps attendees and travelers are feeling much more self-confident about traveling to weddings, maybe outside of their condition, that they could have said no to in the past. But once more, they’re heading to be accomplishing research really differently, specifically those people company that have perhaps declined other weddings in the past. So what that means is they are gonna be looking at your track record more difficult and, and magnifying your name closer than they have before. And that price reduction, that marriage block low cost, once more, there is not a cost in the planet which is gonna be more than enough to convince them to stay at your hotel if they really don’t really feel harmless.
Ryan Embree:
So preserving an eye on your reputation is going to be vital to securing extra wedding day block bookings for your lodge. And then social media is a excellent area to established anticipations for individuals visitors that may possibly not have traveled yet again for decades, possibly when they traveled very last in 2018, they try to remember those giant breakfast buffets. Some accommodations have brought that again. Some of them are nevertheless easing into it and some transitioned for fantastic. Make certain you show on social media and review responses in which your hotel falls in that spectrum. Because the greatest issue that we see with hotels acquiring destructive testimonials from friends is when expectations are not appropriately established, not that they’re not met, they are not adequately set. One more point you want to retain in mind is wanting at assessments from marriage visitors who’ve stayed at the house. Discover if they point out spot or proximity to the community wedding venues that may be in your space.
Ryan Embree:
So repeating those people keyword phrases can assistance you surface increased in look for success when another person queries lodge close to so and so marriage ceremony venue. So if you are following to a park the place a ton of weddings are getting area, if you are repeating that in their critique responses and indicating, sure, we’re in limited proximity to this park, your resort will appear up increased on that research when other wedding day blocks or visitors are undertaking analysis and making an attempt to figure out the place to remain there. So at the finish of the working day, we have missed weddings so a lot in this, in this hotel marketplace. And we’re so satisfied to see, we know there is a growth on the other facet of this as we get into the spring and summer year, and once more, I’ve talked about it on this podcast in advance of, it’s likely to be the inns that place them selves appropriate now that are gonna safe the most bookings.
Ryan Embree:
And one particular of the most essential matters that you need to do is make positive that you have a powerful electronic existence on the net that is telling a pretty clear narrative about your name, social media tale. It is gonna be individuals hotels that capture all those bookings and attract a lot more weddings to their houses. So at Journey Media Team, we are the authorities in digital marketing remedies for accommodations, standing administration, evaluation reaction, social media, and vainness internet sites. So for all of your digital marketing requires, be sure to sense absolutely free to attain out to us. If you are intrigued in understanding about how we can enable make posts for you to attract additional weddings to the residence, we’ve received a wonderful personalized social resolution that you’ve heard about on this podcast. Assist maximize and mature your status on the internet so that you can be in the very best placement to capture additional of these weddings when engaged partners are seeking to e book and choose a venue for their house. I am seriously fired up about this, this upcoming wedding season.
Ryan Embree:
We know there’s a great deal of engaged couples out there. So if you’re fascinated in learning far more about how Vacation Media Team can assistance you entice more weddings to your lodge, attain out to us, go to our internet site. We’ve got a good deal of information there. We’ve got a excellent blog site on precisely what we talked about today. Thank you all for listening to this episode of the Suite Spot, and we will converse to you following time.
Ryan Embree:
To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a 5 star score on iTunes. Suite Spot is generated by Vacation Media Team with protect artwork by Bary Gordon. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and we hope you relished your stay.